Discussion: India Pakistan Clash in the Next Few Months?

[Joe Shearer]

all that practice hasn't helped you guys one bit. keep at it. may be one day you'll

 

[vsdoc]

Whole fugup of India and Pakistan is religion.

The post you are expressing disapproval for was in response to a post where a Pakistani is waxing eloquent about his faith with preposterous claims of being the faith of the first human.

A claim Zoroastrianism has 8000 years earlier in the form of Mashya, and his Mashyana.

So either do not post preposterous stuff.

Or be ready to be called out.

Cheers, Doc

 

[Waz]

Whole fugup of India and Pakistan is religion.

The post you are expressing disapproval for was in response to a post where a Pakistani is waxing eloquent about his faith with preposterous claims of being the faith of the first human.

A claim Zoroastrianism has 8000 years earlier in the form of Mashya, and his Mashyana.

So either do not post preposterous stuff.

Or be ready to be called out.

Cheers, Doc

Not the place I know , but how many years does it predate Hinduism?

 

[Joe Shearer]

Whole fugup of India and Pakistan is religion.

The post you are expressing disapproval for was in response to a post where a Pakistani is waxing eloquent about his faith with preposterous claims of being the faith of the first human.

A claim Zoroastrianism has 8000 years earlier in the form of Mashya, and his Mashyana.

So either do not post preposterous stuff.

Or be ready to be called out.

Cheers, Doc

I wish I'd never met you, Doc.
I wish you didn't exist.
That exchange left me gutted.
All the harder to handle since you are indubitably right. Damn you.

 

[vsdoc]

Not the place I know , but how many years does it predate Hinduism?

I don't think it does. They are near peer faiths, with the monotheist part (Zoroastrianism) about 5000 years old. Predating that, seamlessly in continuum of ancient Persian theology, was Mithraism, Manichaeism, and parallel offshoots such as Babakism, moving from earlier nature worship (the pagan elementals, Gods), to Dualism, to the distilled Mazdaiism or Mazdayasniism (Zoroastrianism). Zarathushtra's earliest Gathas correlate closely to the Rig Veda.

Newer offshoots are Yazdiism and more recently Bahaiism.

Zoroastrianism as with the Persian empire (all 3 of the major ones - the Achaemenids, the Parthians, and the Sassanids) was a world religion.

With Mithraism the official religion of Rome after their defeat by the Persians. All the way to what is now Scotland (relics found at the Hadrian Wall). And another Chinese offshoot of the Sogdians, after their break of Sogdania from the Achaemenid control, and absorption into the Chinese empires.

Cheers, Doc

 

[Joe Shearer]

Not the place I know , but how many years does it predate Hinduism?

They are actually exactly the same age.

Avoid the intervening stuff, and go to the last paragraph.

There was a schism around 2000 BC, when the combined tribe was still on the banks of the Oxus.
The winners believed Ahura was the almighty lord, and he was opposed by the Daivas.
The losers believed that the Devas were gods, and the Asura, their cousins, were the other divine band who were not gods.
The winners stayed on where they were.

First, the Mitanni broke away and migrated hundreds of kilometres and landed up finally in Asia Minor, today's Turkey, came to dominate the local people, the Hittites, and built a vast empire, one of the several that the Hittites were known for.

Second, the Indo-Aryans broke away, settled in Afghanistan, but not permanently stabilised there, called and named the seven rivers, the Hapta Hindu, until the bleak surroundings drove them across in dribs and drabs, as tribes and bands and even, perhaps, families, across the Khaibar, the Gumal and the Bolan. Those who came through the Bolan found a massive river in front that they named as they named other huge bodies of water, the Sindhu.

They found a people who had abandoned the magnificent Indus Valley Civilisation, and lived in smaller settlements outside those main cities, intermarried with them, and, in the northern branch, passed into today's NWFP, into the Punjab, and then through the Ganges Doab for nine centuries, until they reached the swampy mouths of the Ganges, by sometime before 600 BC. The western branch either started from a point where travellers would debouch from the Bolan (speculative) or were part of the original migrants who drifted downstream. Some time around 1500 to 1300 BC (difficult to date), nine of the southern kings met a late-coming tribe, the Bharatas, and were defeated.

The winners in all this schism won big, which is why Doc is so bloody insufferable. They penetrated into the Persian uplands, formed the Medean Empire, while smaller groups, speaking the same language, stayed back on the steppes and formed the Scythians. Ironically, the Medeans were supplanted by a vassal people of their own stock, the Persians, and their first great king, Cyrus, was killed battling his cousins, the Scythians, on the steppes.

Regarding religion, some time after the schism, a religious reformer united the Iranian speakers into the monotheistic Zoroastrian faith. Their religion was administered the way the Parsis and the Iranis of India today administer their fire temples.

The other branch, the Indo-Aryans, started with worship of the sky god, the god of thunder, the god of fire, the god of the waters, the goddess of the dawn, the heavenly twin horsemen, and in these respects almost exactly matched the beliefs of their long-lost cousins, the Mitanni. In addition, these peoples, having mingled thoroughly with the local remnants of the IVC and with the existing hunter-gatherers who populated almost the whole of north India, picked up the worship of local deities, and Siva probably dates from this intermingling, as do the goddesses, most of them who had not found mention in the Rg Veda. So you get the three main branches of what the people themselves never named, but today is increasingly being called Sanatan Dharma, the Old Faith, the three branches being worship of Siva, worship of Vishnu and worship of the Goddess. All that cultural churn happened between 1500 BC and 600 BC, when the Buddha and Mahavira threw out the tenets of the Old Religion, and declared that there must be a better way to live and to die.

Zoroaster must date after 1500 BC, since he is unknown to the Indo-Aryans, and before Cyrus and his indirect successor, Darius, and their entry into South Asia, in 518 BC, into the province around Charsadda (then known as Pushkalavati, half-way between Peshawar and Mardan), that they called Gadara or Gandara; the rather better educated people to the east called it Gandhara.

Long story short: the original Iranian religion around 2000 to 1500 BC, Zoroaster's reforms between 1500 BC to 500 BC, probably earlier rather than later, the Vedic religion, counterpart of the Iranian, and directly opposed, around the same 2000 to 1500 BC, but transforming during the period 1500 to 600 BC.

5000 years old.

Perhaps slightly less, probably 4500 years old.

Predating that, seamlessly in continuum of ancient Persian theology, was Mithraism, Manichaeism, and parallel offshoots such as Babakism, moving from earlier nature worship (the pagan elementals, Gods), to Dualism, to the distilled Mazdaiism or Mazdayasniism (Zoroastrianism). Zarathushtra's earliest Gathas correlate closely to the Rig Veda.

He's right. I don't know about the pre-dating, though. Otherwise, he is bang on about the offshoots. One reason why the fate of the Yazidis caused those who knew to burn with fury was that they are a directly descended faith.

Newer offshoots are Yazdiism and more recently Bahaiism.

Bahaism - yuck. Unfortunately true.

Zoroastrianism as with the Persian empire (all 3 of the major ones - the Achaemenids, the Parthians, and the Sassanids) was a world religion.

With Mithraism the official religion of Rome after their defeat by the Persians. All the way to what is now Scotland (relics found at the Hadrian Wall). And another Chinese offshoot of the Sogdians, after their break of Sogdania from the Achaemenid control, and absorption into the Chinese empires.

Bugger's got it taped.

 

[Joe Shearer]

I don't think it does. They are near peer faiths, with the monotheist part (Zoroastrianism) about 5000 years old. Predating that, seamlessly in continuum of ancient Persian theology, was Mithraism, Manichaeism, and parallel offshoots such as Babakism, moving from earlier nature worship (the pagan elementals, Gods), to Dualism, to the distilled Mazdaiism or Mazdayasniism (Zoroastrianism). Zarathushtra's earliest Gathas correlate closely to the Rig Veda.

Newer offshoots are Yazdiism and more recently Bahaiism.

Zoroastrianism as with the Persian empire (all 3 of the major ones - the Achaemenids, the Parthians, and the Sassanids) was a world religion.

With Mithraism the official religion of Rome after their defeat by the Persians. All the way to what is now Scotland (relics found at the Hadrian Wall). And another Chinese offshoot of the Sogdians, after their break of Sogdania from the Achaemenid control, and absorption into the Chinese empires.

Cheers, Doc

You certainly know your stuff.

 

[Joe Shearer]

You certainly know your stuff.

You realise that in real life, I have an Asura name?

 

[vsdoc]

You certainly know your stuff.

I've morphed over the past 10 years.

I'm not hugely religious, in the classic sense, like the women in my clan.

But I'm hugely proud of my heritage and make sure I know what I'm saying when I pass it down to my kids.

Zoroastrians and Zoroastrianism has survived like that since the time of Alexander.

By word of mouth. From father (and mother) to son. And daughter. And grandparents.

Most of our texts having being gutted and destroyed. First by the Macedonians. And then the Arabs.

That's how we survived in India too. In hiding. For the first 700 years. Getting written instructions back from the ancestral land. Over land. And by sea. Called the Riyavats. Over many months. Even years. First the questions go out. Then the answers (like a Users Manual) come back.

That's also how the Qissa e Sanjan was written. In the 16th century. By word of mouth. Few written records (for security). Everything generational memory. Almost to the last detail.

Dari was the bastardised language we developed (still spoken in Afghanistan) so that our dear now converted brethren did not understand what we spoke. Something like Serbo Croat.

Cheers, Doc

You realise that in real life, I have an Asura name?

Oh yes you do.

People hate being told that Agni was ours. An Asur. He refused to join. When invited by the Daevas.

 

[Joe Shearer]

I've morphed over the past 10 years.

I'm not hugely religious, in the classic sense, like the women in my clan.

But I'm hugely proud of my heritage and make sure I know what I'm saying when I pass it down to my kids.

Zoroastrians and Zoroastrianism has survived like that since te time of Alexander.

By word of mouth. From father (and mother) to son. And daughter. And grandparents.

Most of our texts having being gutted and destroyed. First by the Macedonians. And then the Arabs.

That's how we survived in India too. In hiding. For the first 700 years. Getting written instructions back from the ancestral land. Over land. And by sea. Called the Riyavats. Over many months. Even years. First the questions go out. Then the answers (like a Users Manual) come back.

That's also how the Qissa e Sanjan was written. In the 16th century. By word of mouth. Few written records (for security). Everything generational memory. Almost to the last detail.

Dari was the bastardised language we developed (still spoken in Afghanistan) so that our dear now converted brethren did not understand what we spoke. Something like Serbo Croat.

Cheers, Doc



Oh yes you do.

People hate being told that Agni was ours. An Asur. He refused to join. When invited by the Daevas.

And Varuna/Ouranos/Uranus.

 

[vsdoc]

And Varuna/Ouranos/Uranus.

I've read some sources that say that Varuna was Ahura Mazda.

The others, besides Agni, and you, were Mithra and Anahita.

Cheers, Doc

 

[Joe Shearer]

I've read some sources that say that Varuna was Ahura Mazda.

The others, besides Agni, and you, were Mithra and Anahita.

Cheers, Doc

Yes, it wasn't Dyaus Pitar, it wasn't Indra, and there is that expert opinion.
The others were Agni, Mitra and Anahita; my namesake was never worshipped, the other three were, and you cannot have a Hindu wedding unless Agni is a witness, and you circle him seven times pronouncing the oaths specific to each circuit.

 

[VersusChristi]

We need to talk

Sure!

 

[VersusChristi]

Think of it in terms of numbers. The highest share of votes cast that the Sangh Parivar => RSS => BJP => Modi got was 38%. 62% Indians voted against this combine.

I would be cautious to draw this conclusion. NDA (including BJP) got 45% vote share. To put it in perspective. Nehru and INC got 45% in 1952 as well.

I will put Modi on same footing as Nehru in 1952 as far as public support goes. And that in India means absolute support.

 

[Saifullah]

why are the cries of Gaza not been answered till date?

That’s what you think.
Not reality.